Three Hymns for Oboe and Piano

SKU: JK.01976

UPC: 093285019768.

Intro ducing Path to Serenity, the advanced sacred instrumental series for C instruments. This series of C instrument solo books is the answer to many inquiries for advanced sacred solo repertoire from a variety of instrumentalists. These elegant arrangements were composed to enfold the souls of all listeners in the messages of hope and healing found in the hymns. This series will accommodate the oboe, flute, violin, cello, bassoon, and many other instruments. Appropriate settings include sacred occasions such as funerals, sacrament meetings, and firesides, as well as recitals and concerts.

The series includes three books (SOLD SEPARATELY):
Piano Accompaniment Book - #01976
C Instrument - Treble Clef - #01977
C Instrument - Bass Clef - #01978



Arr angements found in this book:
Be Still, My Soul
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Treble/Bass Duet - use all three books)
Where Can I Turn for Peace?
If You Could Hie to Kolob
I Need Thee Every Hour
More Holiness Give Me
Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee
Amazing Grace
Our Savior's Love
Composer: Various
Arranger: Sarah Brough Blomquist
Difficulty: Late-Intermediate/Advance d.

SKU: PR.165001000

ISBN 9781491129241. UPC: 680160669776. 9 x 12 inches.

Commissione d for a consortium of high school and college bands in the north Dallas region, FOR THEMYSTIC HARMONY is a 10-minute inspirational work in homage to Norwood and Elizabeth Dixon,patrons of the Fort Worth Symphony and the Van Cliburn Competition. Welcher draws melodic flavorfrom five American hymns, spirituals, and folk tunes of the 19th century. The last of these sources toappear is the hymn tune For the Beauty of the Earth, whose third stanza is the quatrain: “For the joy of earand eye, For the heart and mind’s delight, For the mystic harmony, Linking sense to sound and sight,”giving rise to the work’s title.
This work, commissioned for a consortium of high school bands in the north Dallas area, is my fifteenth maturework for wind ensemble (not counting transcriptions). When I asked Todd Dixon, the band director whospearheaded this project, what kind of a work he most wanted, he first said “something that’s basically slow,” butwanted to leave the details to me. During a long subsequent conversation, he mentioned that his grandparents,Norwood and Elizabeth Dixon, were prime supporters of the Fort Worth Symphony, going so far as to purchase anumber of high quality instruments for that orchestra. This intrigued me, so I asked more about his grandparentsand was provided an 80-page biographical sketch. Reading that article, including a long section about theirdevotion to supporting a young man through the rigors of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition fora number of years, moved me very much. Norwood and Elizabeth Dixon weren’t just supporters of the arts; theywere passionate lovers of music and musicians. I determined to make this work a testament to that love, and tothe religious faith that sustained them both. The idea of using extant hymns was also suggested by Todd Dixon,and this 10-minute work is the result.I have employed existing melodies in several works, delving into certain kinds of religious music more than a fewtimes. In seeking new sounds, new ways of harmonizing old tunes, and the contrapuntal overlaying of one tunewith another, I was able to make works like ZION (using 19th-century Revivalist hymns) and LABORING SONGS(using Shaker melodies) reflect the spirit of the composers who created these melodies, without sounding likepastiches or medleys. I determined to do the same with this new work, with the added problem of employingmelodies that were more familiar. I chose five tunes from the 19th century: hymns, spirituals, and folk-tunes.Some of these are known by differing titles, but they all appear in hymnals of various Christian denominations(with various titles and texts). My idea was to employ the tunes without altering their notes, instead using aconstantly modulating sense of harmony — sometimes leading to polytonal harmonizations of what are normallysimple four-chord hymns.The work begins and ends with a repeated chime on the note C: a reminder of steeples, white clapboard churchesin the country, and small church organs. Beginning with a Mixolydian folk tune of Caribbean origin presentedtwice with layered entrances, the work starts with a feeling of mystery and gentle sorrow. It proceeds, after along transition, into a second hymn that is sometimes connected to the sea (hence the sensation of water andwaves throughout it). This tune, by John B. Dykes (1823-1876), is a bit more chromatic and “shifty” than mosthymn-tunes, so I chose to play with the constant sensation of modulation even more than the original does. Atthe climax, the familiar spiritual “Were you there?” takes over, with a double-time polytonal feeling propelling itforward at “Sometimes it causes me to tremble.”Trumpets in counterpoint raise the temperature, and the tempo as well, leading the music into a third tune (ofunknown provenance, though it appears with different texts in various hymnals) that is presented in a sprightlymanner. Bassoons introduce the melody, but it is quickly taken up by other instruments over three “verses,”cons tantly growing in orchestration and volume. A mysterious second tune, unrelated to this one, interrupts it inall three verses, sending the melody into unknown regions.The final melody is “For the Beauty of the Earth.” This tune by Conrad Kocher (1786-1872) is commonly sung atThanksgiving — the perfect choice to end this work celebrating two people known for their generosity.Keeping the sense of constant modulation that has been present throughout, I chose to present this hymn in threegrowing verses, but with a twist: every four bars, the “key” of the hymn seems to shift — until the “Lord of all, toThee we praise” melody bursts out in a surprising compound meter. This, as it turns out, was the “mystery tune”heard earlier in the piece. After an Ivesian, almost polytonal climax, the Coda begins over a long B( pedal. At first,it seems to be a restatement of the first two phrases of “For the Beauty” with long spaces between them, but it soonchanges to a series of “Amen” cadences, widely separated by range and color. These, too, do not conform to anykey, but instead overlay each other in ways that are unpredictable but strangely comforting.The third verse of “For the Beauty of the Earth” contains this quatrain:“For the joy of ear and eye, –For the heart and mind’s delightFor the mystic harmonyLinking sense to sound and sight”and it was from this poetry that I drew the title for the present work. It is my hope that audiences and performerswill find within it a sense of grace: more than a little familiar, but also quite new and unexpected.

SKU: PR.466000470

UPC: 680160099405. 11 x 17 inches.

This is the second incarnation of a work I first composed in 1994 for symphonic wind ensemble. The earlier version was intended to be the summation of three-part suite, each part being named for a different national park in the Western United States. This orchestral version, commissioned in 1999 by the Utah Symphony and dedicated to the memory of Aaron Copland, is more than a re-scoring of the earlier piece; it is a re-thinking of all its elements. Zion is a place with unrivaled natural grandeur, being a sort of huge box canyon in which the traveler is constantly overwhelmed by towering rock walls on every side of him -- but it is also a place with a human history, having been inhabited by several tribes of native Americans before the arrival of the Mormon settlers in the mid-19th century. By the time the Mormons reached Utah, they had been driven all the way from New York State through Ohio and, with tragic losses, through Missouri. They saw Utah in general as a place nobody wanted, but they were nonetheless determined to keep it to themselves. Although Zion Canyon was never a Mormon Stronghold, the people who reached it and claimed it (and gave it its present name) had been through extreme trials. It is the religious fervor of these persecuted people that I was able to draw upon in creating Zion as a piece of music. There are two quoted hymns in the work: Zion's Walls (which Aaron Copland adapted to his own purposes in both his Old American Songs and the opera The Tender Land) and Zion's Security, which I found in the same volume in which Copland found Zion's Walls -- that inexhaustible storehouse of 19th-century hymnody called The Sacred Harp. My work opens with a three-verse setting of Zion's Security, a stern tune in F-sharp minor which is full of resolve. (The words of this hymn are resolute and strong, rallying the faithful to be firm, and describing the city of our God they hope to establish). This melody alternates with a fanfare tune, whose origins will be revealed in later music, until the second half of the piece begins: a driving rhythmic ostinato based on a 3/4-4/4 alternating meter scheme. This pauses at its height to restate Zion's Security one more time, in a rather obscure setting surrounded by freely shifting patterns in the flutes, clarinets, and percussion -- until the sun warms the ground sufficiently for the second hymn to appear. Zion's Walls is set in 7/8, unlike Copland's 9/8-6/8 meters (the original is quite strange, and doesn't really fit any constant meter), and is introduced by a warm horn solo. The two hymns vie for attention from here to the end of the piece, with the glowingly optimistic Zion's Walls finally achieving prominence. The work ends with a sense of triumph.

SKU: JK.01977

UPC: 093285019775.

Intro ducing Path to Serenity, the advanced sacred instrumental series for C instruments. This series of C instrument solo books is the answer to many inquiries for advanced sacred solo repertoire from a variety of instrumentalists. These elegant arrangements were composed to enfold the souls of all listeners in the messages of hope and healing found in the hymns. This series will accommodate the oboe, flute, violin, cello, bassoon, and many other instruments. Appropriate settings include sacred occasions such as funerals, sacrament meetings, and firesides, as well as recitals and concerts.

The series includes three books (SOLD SEPARATELY):
Piano Accompaniment Book - #01976
C Instrument - Treble Clef - #01977
C Instrument - Bass Clef - #01978

Arrangement s found in this book:
Be Still, My Soul
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Treble/Bass Duet - use all three books)
Where Can I Turn for Peace?
If You Could Hie to Kolob
I Need Thee Every Hour
More Holiness Give Me
Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee
Amazing Grace
Our Savior's Love
Composer: Various
Arranger: Sarah Brough Blomquist
Difficulty: Late-Intermediate/Advance d.

SKU: JK.01978

UPC: 093285019782.

Intro ducing Path to Serenity, the advanced sacred instrumental series for C instruments. This series of C instrument solo books is the answer to many inquiries for advanced sacred solo repertoire from a variety of instrumentalists. These elegant arrangements were composed to enfold the souls of all listeners in the messages of hope and healing found in the hymns. This series will accommodate the oboe, flute, violin, cello, bassoon, and many other instruments. Appropriate settings include sacred occasions such as funerals, sacrament meetings, and firesides, as well as recitals and concerts.

The series includes three books (SOLD SEPARATELY):
Piano Accompaniment Book - #01976
C Instrument - Treble Clef - #01977
C Instrument - Bass Clef - #01978

Arrangement s found in this book:
Be Still, My Soul
Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing (Treble/Bass Duet - use all three books)
Where Can I Turn for Peace?
If You Could Hie to Kolob
I Need Thee Every Hour
More Holiness Give Me
Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee
Amazing Grace
Our Savior's Love
Composer: Various
Arranger: Sarah Brough Blomquist
Difficulty: Late-Intermediate/Advance d.

SKU: HL.14027993

ISBN 9788759811832. English.

Premiered at the festival 'Magma Berlin 2002' by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson, 29th November 2002.

3 Flutes, 1st and 2nd also Alto Flutes in G, 3rd also Piccolo
3 Oboes, 3rd also Cor Anglais in F
3 Clarinets in Bb, 3rd also Bass Clarinet in Bb
3 Bassoons, 3rd also Contra Bassoon

4 Horn in F
3 Trumpets in Bb
3 Trombones
1 Tuba

Timpani
4 Percussion, four players
Player 1 - Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Water Chime, Bell Tree, Japanese Wood Blocks, Cymbal (Suspended), TamTam (Medium)
Player 2 - Triangle, Tubular Bells, Crotales, Marimba, Chinese Cymbal
Player 3 - TamTam (Large), Java Gong(Large, very low), Bell Lyra (Handheld), Sizzle Cymbal
Player 4 - Bass Drum, Glockenspiel, Xylophone

1 Harp

1 Piano, also Celesta

Strings - 16/14/12/10/8

All transposing instruments are notated in their relevant transpositions.
Any accidental apply only to the note that it immediately precedes, except tied notes.
Naturals appear occasionally 'for safety'.

'LIST ENING EARTH' is a symphonic drama, a one- movement composition in four parts based on the work by two writers, Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and W.H.Auden (1907-1973). Joseph Addison is not particularly well known; he was English, a classical scholar, essayist, poet and politician, but one of his hymns was used by Benjamin Britten. in his setting of a Thomas Tallis canon.
The hymn is singularly beautiful and being a composer always inspired by extramusical stimuli such as poems, nature, paintings, I was immediately convinced when I carne across the Addison hymn, that here was exactly what I wanted to use as my major source of inspiration for this piece, commissioned by and written for The Berlin Philharmonic.
I don't refer to the hymn in its entirety, but have chosen the following 3 excerpts, all acting as mottos for the first three sections of the piece, thus turning the piece into a straightforward tonepoem in the classical.